Flammie A Pirinen on github pages
I have studied a bit of Inari Sámi with few very good remote courses from Uni Oulu, and I work with North Sámi speakers a lot. The languages are quite mutually intelligible but some differences, orthography is slightly different, few sounds too, also nominal inflection has different cases. But the main difference to remember when speaking is the lexemes, usually some common words that are shared between Finnish or Norwegian and vice versa.
The orthographies are not massively different, but there are some deviations. The long á or fronted á in North Sámis is fronted á in non-first syllables in some Inari Sámi words. Inari Sámi uses fronted ä like Finnish and also long ää, e.g. säämi in Inari Sámi is sápmi in North Sámi. I think the gradation patterns are marked differently in Inari Sámi and North Sámi but I have to investigate further.
North Sámi and Inari Sámi have very similar phonologies and phoneme sets, I haven’t researched closely but I have a gut feeling that Inari Sámi is often systematically closer to Finnish phonology than North Sámi where common Proto-Saamic or Proto-Uralic roots exist. This shows up in e.g. medial g in North Sámi which corresponds to v in Inari Sámi, e.g. savâstâllâđ ~ ságastallat.
| Inari | North | English gloss | Norwegian gloss | Finnish gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| takkâ | giitu | thanks | takk | kiitos |
| okko | vahkku | week | uke | viikko |
| ihe | jahki | year | år | vuosi |
| ollâopâttâh | universitehta | university | universitet | yliopisto |
| koččâmuš | gažaldat, jearaldat | question | spörsmål | kysymys |
| jieht | ikte | yesterday | igår | eilen |
| ennuv | ollu | much, many | mye | paljon |